


Do you remember?

by willsolacepositivity



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus and five friendship, The tua creators said no <3 to showing the hargreeves' childhood so i made some, the umbrella academy season one, trainwreck_WIP r u proud of me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27254443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willsolacepositivity/pseuds/willsolacepositivity
Summary: Five finds an old picture of him and Klaus in his room, and remembers a promise (takes place during S1E01)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 71





	Do you remember?

All throughout the day, Five tried not to show it. The last few hours made him want to curl up in a ball and cry in the corner- finding himself in his thirteen-year-old body, seeing what his family had become, figuring out that he didn’t have a year, as planned, but only a few days to save the world, and defeating those Commission drones. All those things he could shove into a back corner of his mind, cram a lid onto it and shove it onto a shelfful of overflowing concerns and memories, but one thing stuck in his head; Klaus. Before Five had left, he considered himself friendly with his siblings, but he and Klaus had always been close. They always tried to get paired off in missions, snuck around the house outside of designated free time hours, and, to be honest, tolerated each other’s dumbass antics more than anyone else could. Then, one day, Klaus had asked Five to blink down to the mausoleum during his one-on-one training day with Dad. Five had been confused at first, but Klaus had insisted. 

Five had blinked down to the dark of the mausoleum with a flashlight and a water bottle, and was immediately startled by Klaus’s screams. Dad would be hard on Five whe he trained, making him dodge bowling balls and spiky projectiles sailing through the air, but never to the point of him screaming. Five ran over to the corner from where the screams were coming, and the image he saw never left his head. 

Klaus was pressed against a corner, eyes wide and unfocused on anything on the mortal realm. He was screaming and sobbing, chest convulsing, tring to cover his ears. But, worst of all, Five would occasionally see glimpses of  _ them.  _ He assumed they were ghosts- it was Klaus’s power, after all, but they made even Five scared. Their faces were gaunt, maniacal, terrifying, and when they spoke their voices sounded like Five’s nightmares. But worst of all was what they were saying-  _ “Klaus! Klaus!”  _ Five, although he considered himself the mature one, had never felt responsible for any of his siblings before. Now, he ran between the flickers of ghosts and Klaus, and shook his brother by the shoulders. 

“Klaus!” Five desperately screamed. His brother finally noticed him, and stopped screaming. 

“Five? You came?” His voice was barely more than a whisper. “Oh, I’ve been here for… for…”

“Fifteen minutes.” Five said gravely. If Klaus was inside the mausoleum for four hours a week, how much did he have to endure? Five didn’t have time to ponder as he felt Klaus’s head lean against his chest. Klaus was sobbing into Five’s chest now. 

“Is this… what happens every time?” Five asked, cautiously. 

“Yeah.” Klaus managed. 

“Here, here. I saw the ghosts, that really sucks.” Five pulled in for a hug. He had never been the best at consoling his siblings, but thankfully it seemed to cheer Klaus up. After maybe a few minutes, possibly the longest hug Five had ever had, Klaus managed to sit back. 

Still sniffling, Klaus said “They’re still here. Not being alone helps, though.”

“Water?” Five pulled the bottle out.

“Yeah, thanks.” 

“Hey, there’s no guarantee I could do it well, but I could try to blink both of us out.” Five offered. In truth, he had only practiced large objects, not people, but it was worth a shot. 

“Could you?” For the first time, Klaus sounded hopeful. 

“Yeah, one moment. Just, uh, hold on tight.” Five felt Klaus’s hand grip his own, and fiercely concentrated on the most familiar place to him- Five’s room. There was a soft pop, blue light, and the two of them landed in the middle of his room. 

“I- Five!” Klaus smiled, widely and openly this time, and collapsed onto Five’s bed. For once, Five didn’t protest at Klaus’s messy habits, or at the bad jokes he cracked as the two of them spent the remaining three hours in Five’s room, going through his stash of Coca-cola and sugar cookies. They even snapped a picture of the two of them trying to see who could jump the highest, Klaus with a deeply offended expression on his face as he insisted that “jump” didn’t include Five’s space jumps. 

At the end, Five had to blink them back to the mausoleum, and as he heard Dad’s footsteps approaching, he said, “You know what? That was pretty fun. Let’s do it again next week. And if Dad ever tries to pull anything, we’ll run away together.”

“Run away together?”

“Yeah.” Five said. “Just the two of us- we’ll find an apartment and make a living for ourselves, somehow.” Then they both laughed, and the last thing Five heard as he had to blink away was Klaus trying to stifle his giggling before Dad opened the door. 

***

Five had found the picture in his room- Klaus and Five, jumping on his bed, Klaus being annoyed about Five’s cheating. Both of them, so young, so carefree, the best of friends.  Maybe that’s where Five had gone wrong. If he had kept his promise to Klaus, not lost his temper with Dad, they might have actually followed through to the childish fantasy. Back in the day, they made a good team, they could have actually done well. And it was all Five’s fault. 

He sighed and then walked down to Klaus’s room, and knocked on the door. 

“Come in, Fivey.” Klaus called. Five had to brace himself for a moment- he still remembered  _ his  _ Klaus, thirteen-year-old Klaus, who got mad when Five cheated at stupid games, stayed at Five’s room instead of the mausoleum every one of his training days, and made jokes whenever Dad left the room, not the new homeless junkie Klaus. It hurt Five’s conscience more than all the killing combined, but he missed his best friend. 

Still, Five opened the door and walked in. “How did you know it was me?”

“Easy- you’re the only one with enough leftover respect for me to knock.” Klaus puffed on a… well, whatever it was, it smelled awful.

“I wouldn’t say  _ respect,  _ per se.” Five answered in a steely tone. “And by the way, we need to discuss something.”

“What?” 

“You need to get clean.”

“Why?” Klaus took another puff and stared at the ceiling. It was just like the one in Five’s own childhood room. Five wondered if Klaus remembered the time when Five miscalculated a jump and gotten stuck on top of the ceiling fan. Probably not- from what he had seen, Klaus barely knew where he was half the time. 

“Because you could  _ die,  _ Klaus. And as useless and pathetic as you are, you dying would be inconvenient.”

Klaus just began laughing and shooting glances to his left. Klaus did that often now, Five noticed- acting as if there was another person in the room, one no one else could see. Probably just the drugs. 

“All of a sudden you’re the caring brother, huh? I wanted to spend some quality time this morning and no, but you come here and tell me to get my life in order.” Klaus whined. 

“Klaus, you don’t understand what it feels like, spending forty-three years  _ alone  _ in the  _ apocalypse,  _ only to get home and find out your brother is a motherfucking junkie!” For once, Five didn’t have to run his words through the filter of what was acceptable to say- it was exactly what he had been thinking. He had expected Klaus to react to his screaming, maybe even console him, but all he did was start to break out laughing again. What the fuck was so funny?

“If you’re playing the ‘ _ You have no idea how it feels to suffer a terrible fate and see your brother fucking up his life’  _ card, been there, done that, gotten the earful.” This stumped Five- everyone else in the Academy seemed pretty content with their lives. Besides, the only person who regularly talked to Klaus, as far as Five could see, was Diego, which just didn’t make sense. 

“Please?” Five let his voice break a little bit. 

“It helps me with the ghosts.” Was Klaus’s only answer. Klaus had said the same thing a long time ago, Five remembered. About him. But he didn’t let it show as he shook his head in what he hoped looked like frustration and turned to leave. 

“Hey Five?”

“What?” 

“Remember when we were twelve, and you blinked me out of that mausoleum? We’d hang out at your room every one of my training days. I kept dreaming of the day we’d run off together.” Klaus’s voice was soft, nostalgic, remarkably lucid.

Five tried to keep the tears out of his eyes as he said, “No. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”


End file.
